Hard Drive results?

[Anonymous]

Hello to All,
I'm using passmark V5 Performance test on a A7N8X delux mb v1.04 Bios 1001C, AMD 1700XP, 256 Corsair DDR pc2700 @333, Geforce3 TI200, Master WD300AB 5400rpm 30gig 100 ATA 2.5gig used, Slave WD800JB 7400rpm 80gig 100 ATA 40gig used, Win98SE, MS IDE drivers.
Both drives defraged before testing, Dma enabled, startup and bios indicate both ata 100, test repeated more than 10 times with same results.
No other programs loaded or running in the background.
.............................WD300AB(master)...... .........WD800JB(slave)
Sequential Read -------- 3.1 (-91.4%) ? --------------- 35.8
Sequential Write -------- 29.9 (-26.6%) ---------------- 40.8
Random Seek +RW ----- 6.4(-18.8%) ------------------ 7.8

That sequential read of 3.1 is bad. Any ideas why? I read thru the post and checked everything several times, rebooted, checked msconfig for startup programs the results were always within .3 of each other. On the other hand the slave is kicking it!

[David (PassMark)]

Some things to try,

- Move the slow WD300AB drive to the 2nd IDE cable and re-test. You might need to temporarily disconnect (or move) a CD drive to do this.

- Try some experiments with the Advanced disk test. In particular try using the Raw access method (1 thread, with 100% reading and 100% Sequential). The Raw access method ignores the high level formatting of the disk and is not affected by fragmentation. (note however that real life software applications don't use this method to access the disk, they would use the Standard Win32 API method instead).

--------
David
PassMark

[Anonymous]

Tried Again

Well David, I tried to move the drive to the other IDE cable. The system didn't like that. After about 5min it was still trying to get thru the startup. It never did freeze but it listed it as ATA33 (WD300AB). Gave up on that. I installed a new Ultra ATA cable with fingers crossed. switched the master and the slave around on the cable didn't change anything. The tests have remained consistant. I also tried the advanced test, couldn't do the raw access (Win98SE). They also showed similiar results. I've had programs open, closed, nothing changes it more than .5 on the score.
Can you explain what the sequential read means for performance on a computer? I believe it refers to reading info on the hard drive, correct? If so how can this drive read @ 3.1 but write @ 29.9?
Given all the different things I've tried and the test remaining constant, what would you recommend? I got a DVD burner for christmas and have began to to use this computer for video editing. Video saved to second hard drive, WD800JB.
Any help or advise would be appreciated.

[David (PassMark)]

The short answer is that I don't know what is going on. You might just have to go through some (more) trial and error testing to determine if it is the drive, the O/S or the MB that is the problem.

'Sequential read' is reading a file from start to finish in a sequential manner (without seeking).

Can you put the drive into a friends machine (not as a boot drive but as an extra drive) and test on the other machine?

Can you manually test the read speed by dragging and dropping a big file from the bad drive to the good drive (time how long it takes in seconds and divide by the file size). Make sure is it a single really really big file to avoid caching effects. (e.g. a 1GB zip file)

If you can upgrade from W98 that would be good, but this shouldn't really be the cause of the problem.

--------
David
PassMark